Oscar-Nominated Actress Dies

An actress who was a star on Broadway and on the big screen, winning a Tony Award in 1967 for “The Apple Tree” and an Oscar nomination in 1972 for “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?,” has died. The AP reports that Barbara Harris died early today of lung cancer in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 83.

“Harris played the mother who switched bodies with Jodie Foster in the original ‘Freaky Friday’ in 1976, the same year she starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, ‘Family Plot.'” the AP reports. “But it was Robert Altman’s 1975 ‘Nashville’ that would become her best-known film with her memorable performance of ‘It Don’t Worry Me’ in front of a shell-shocked crowd after the violent climax.”

The report adds: “She was one of the performers in the historic first cast of Chicago’s Second City improvisational theater, which opened its doors in late 1959. Over a half-century it has become the proving ground for dozens of now-famous actors and comedians, from Alan Arkin and John Belushi to Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert.”

Harris was a four-time Golden Globe nominee, including two nominations in the same year for Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical, for “Freaky Friday” and “Family Plot,” both in 1977. She was also nominated for “A Thousand Clowns” and “Nashville.”

Here’s Harris performing “It Don’t Worry Me” at the end of “Nashville” …